UW Study Looks At What Draws Younger Adults To Smaller Communities

Rural and suburban communities across Wisconsin are struggling with young people leaving for cities.

But a new University of Wisconsin-Madison study found that's actually not the case for every community in the state, and researchers set out to discover what sets those communities apart.

Randy Stoecker is the lead researcher of the study and a UW-Madison professor of community and environmental psychology. He said out of 1,880 communities in the state, 280 of them are actually not losing younger adults.

Communities, in this case, are cities, villages and towns.

"The first step was seeing if we could find any places at all," Stoeker said. "We found more than I expected we would find."

Allyson Watson, a UW-Extension researcher who worked on the study, said when young people leave communities, the workforce, schools and property tax collection suffers.

Stoecker and his team looked for what those communities that weren’t losing young people had in common, and why they're able to keep young adults in their community while others aren’t.

The researchers delved into 12 communities that weren’t losing people between ages 20 and 39. Those communities include Delavan in the southeastern part of the state, Hayward in the northwest and Plover in central Wisconsin.

While communities across the state are attracting and keeping young people, Stoeker said there are still significant holes. Young adults who are looking to move out of a big city and settle down, still want a city nearby that’s relatively easy to access.

Stoeker said that’s making the millennial-drain especially significant in communities up north.

"By and large the communities that are gaining young adults are by freeways and cities," Stoeker said.

But while young adults want the professional and recreational benefits of living near cities, Stoeker said many young people with families are also looking to integrate themselves into smaller communities. He said they’re looking for good schools, but not just schools with high test scores, they're looking for schools that double as inviting, welcoming, community spaces.

Those kinds of spaces are actually a main draw for young people, Watson said. They found young adults were looking for public spaces where they can get out of the house and engage with their communities.

For example, Watson said for the past year the Fox River Trail in Brown County has been plowed in the winter. Young adults they talked to for their study said it was important to them that they could now access the trail year-round.

Plus, the researchers found young people were also looking for indoor community spaces nearby, places like microbreweries and coffee shops.

But more than almost anything, young adults are looking for good places to eat, Watson said. She said that’s even popped up in state advertising campaigns in Chicago that are hoping to lure young adults living there to Wisconsin. One ad, for example, shows young adults enjoying food and beer on the Monona Terrace.

Watson said more targeted branding could help attract young people to Wisconsin.

"Losing the national identity we have that we are exclusively beer and football and highlighting, 'Yes, we have great beer and great football but look at all these other things we have as well,'" Watson said.

To conduct the study, UW-Extension educators helped researchers identify leaders in each community to interview about their community and its ability to attract and retain young adults.